The seafood and suntan were going better than the assignment. Escorted by Hans and Hans, they visited countless addresses in Palma and the surrounding smaller towns and villages, where they might possibly find Hedberg or perhaps someone who could give information about where he was.
The first address they visited was the one that Hedberg had provided to the Swedish authorities the last time he emitted a sign of life. Over seven years before, when he applied for a new passport. The address he provided proved to be a simple boarding establishment on Calle Asunción, in old Palma. The man in reception only shook his head when their Spanish assistants started asking him about Hedberg.
Bars, hotels, brothels, leasing firms, brokers and agents for all conceivable services. The usual squealers, informants, petty crooks, and the occasional ordinary person who might possibly have run into Hedberg. All simply shook their heads.
Only after five days, on Friday afternoon the fifth of October, did they finally get a tip that was worth the name.
92
As soon as Holt lifted off from Arlanda, Lewin suddenly had a lot of help from an unexpected direction. When he arrived on Monday morning he found a copy of his own list of fifteen points. It was lying on top of a considerable pile of papers. Plus a brief greeting from his colleague Rogersson: “From the Boss. Rogge.” From the date he realized that the papers had been on his desk for over twenty-four hours, while in his usual solitude he had survived yet another empty weekend. I might just as well have been at work, he thought.
After another hour his colleague Falk knocked on his door and handed over a list of the transactions that had been made on Birgitta Hedberg’s credit card during the past year. An ordinary Visa card that she used even more seldom than her home phone. One line was underlined in red. In early March, seven months earlier and a month after she had renewed her passport, she had booked a trip to Spain and paid with the card. A week with hotel and half-board. But not to Mallorca, to the Spanish Sun Coast. Either Hedberg has moved or else he simply chose to meet her there, thought Lewin.
The thought that she might have gone there on her own initiative did not even occur to him. Birgitta Hedberg is not the type to waste a week of her life swimming, sunbathing, or socializing with people she doesn’t know. She wouldn’t do it even just to relax, thought Jan Lewin. He realized that as soon as he saw the expression in her eyes on her passport photo.
“Thanks,” said Jan Lewin.
“No problem,” Falk replied, shrugging his shoulders. “There’s more coming in a while.”
“Before you go,” said Lewin. “Just so we don’t duplicate our efforts unnecessarily.”
“I’m listening,” said Falk, without sitting down.
“I’ll make sure our colleagues down there get the information about her trip,” said Lewin. “Ask that they check whether Hedberg possibly flew from Palma at the same time. What else might I do that you aren’t already doing or have already arranged for me?” said Lewin, nodding amiably to soften what otherwise might be perceived as criticism.
“I think you can forget about that,” said Falk. “We’ve already checked it, with the help of our colleagues at Europol. No Hedberg on the relevant plane from and to Palma, which doesn’t necessarily mean a thing because we’re talking about Spanish domestic flights and their procedures. What his sis was doing on vacation I also think you can forget about, simply because that will take too much time. Think about her cell phone instead,” said Falk. “If you have any good ideas about how we can get the number.”
“If she even has one,” said Lewin, sounding as if he was thinking out loud. Although of course she does, he thought. He understood that from the expression in her eyes.
“She does,” said Falk. “I’ve seen it myself. Most recently this morning.”
“Do tell,” said Lewin. Now we’re moving, he thought.
“You probably have it in your e-mail,” said Falk, looking at the clock for some reason. “Our colleague Wiklander is supposed to be sending you a memo.”
Now things are really moving, thought Lewin.
Wiklander was the top boss of the National Bureau’s intelligence department, the so-called CIS squad. For more than twenty years he had been Johansson’s confidant, and most of all he was known for his discretion. Wiklander gathered information about the sort of things that were of interest to the police. About high and low, and the higher the better. From everyone who had anything to offer, and if there was anyone who wanted something in return, it was crucial to show that you had very good reasons. Otherwise it was Wiklander and his staff of analysts who decided how the knowledge they were sitting on would benefit their colleagues, regardless of whether they had asked for it or not. Wiklander was a man according to Johansson’s taste. A person he could sit and talk with quite openly about the most sensitive matters, because he always knew that the conversation had never taken place, if the wrong person were to ask.
Lewin had apparently passed through the eye of the needle. At least where finding out the number to Kjell Göran Hedberg’s sister’s cell phone was concerned. It’s always something, thought Lewin, printing out the e-mail from Wiklander, because he preferred to read something he could hold in his hand and make notes on.
The external surveillance of Birgitta Hedberg had already started on Friday the week before, carried out by a group from the bureau’s own detective squad under the command of Rogersson, even though he really worked in homicide. By Saturday morning they had already found a suitable “nest.” It was a small apartment across the street from Birgitta Hedberg’s residence and offered a full view into her bedroom, dining room, and kitchen. An ideal nest that was being sublet by an aspiring female police officer in her last semester at the police academy, who was completely unacquainted with Birgitta Hedberg, and obviously had no idea why they were interested in her unknown neighbor. She was burning with enthusiasm at the chance to help her future colleagues. At the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, besides.
By Saturday afternoon she had signed the usual confidentiality agreements and for the time being was being lodged at a hotel in the vicinity and got a decent gratuity for the inconvenience. Then Rogersson fixed his eyes on her and told her sternly not only to keep her mouth shut but also to stay away. Not only from her apartment, but from the whole area.
While Rogersson took care of the aspiring police officer and the judicial and social details, his detectives settled into her apartment and got their equipment in place.
“External surveillance from premises as per description above was initiated at 14:00 hours, Saturday September 29,” Wiklander noted in the first point of his surveillance memo, and by Saturday evening things had already started happening.
After having a simple dinner at six-thirty, Birgitta Hedberg disappeared into her living room to watch TV. Not because she could be seen-her living room was on the “wrong” side of the building-but rather because her TV could be heard by means of the microphone aimed at her kitchen window right across the street. However that might be, considering that parliament was still struggling with the issue of whether to approve the use of so-called concealed monitoring by the police.
Regardless of which, first she watched the news on TV4. Then she returned to the kitchen. Made coffee, took a bag of cookies from the pantry, and after ten minutes-when the coffee was ready-took both coffee and cookies with her and disappeared in the direction of her living room. Then surfed between various channels for over fifteen minutes before she finally started watching a Swedish movie on TV2 that started at eight o’clock.
When that was over she changed channels and watched the late news on TV4. Then she turned off the TV in the middle of the sign-off from the news program. At exactly thirty-seven minutes past ten she again became visible in her kitchen. Now in a white terry-cloth bathrobe, hair let down, without makeup, teeth brushed and ready for a night’s rest. The sensitive microphone even captured the sound of tooth brushing and a medicine cabinet being closed, opened, and closed again. Of the water she ran in the sink, and three minutes later the flushing of the toilet.